iOS Audiobook player without iTunes media library
I would really like to find an audiobook player that works on iOS without using the iTunes media library.
Here is my problem: iTunes (on Mac) mixes audio and e- books together. I have a fair sized software development library in e-book format and I can't begin to say how annoying this is when I am trying to manage (or use) e-books. I can't say enough how I don't want audio books appearing in alphabetical order mixed in with my developer library. Removing the "audiobook" designation will make the impossible task of separating modern and classical music on iTunes that much more aggravating.
I used to have a similar problem with podcasts being in the same app as everything else, and I solved that by switching to an iOS podcast app: it downloads podcasts, stores them outside of the media library, remembers my place even after I have been listening to music, and is far easier to operate than the Music app.
Unfortunately, every iOS audiobook player app I have found seems to use the iTunes media library for its storage, solving only half of my frustration.
Any suggestions for audiobook management and playing alternatives on iOS?
Solution 1:
I have been trying to answer this question for myself for ages. I've only recently found the solution for me - SpeedUp Player Pro seems to have all of the audiobook functionality I need. The hightlights are:
- Speed up (up to TRUE 2.5x)
- Load items from Dropbox
- Adjustable Forward and Backward Skip
- A/B Repeat (for studying)
- Gestures
- Functional free version with some features disabled.
The app is not rock-solid in terms of stability, but I expect it will get there as the developer continues to work on it. The developer's name is mix1009 and there is a link to his/her website.
Solution 2:
I too have tried SpeedUp Player (the Lite version), and it does a good job with configuring the playback speed. However, it has one really annoying defect that makes it unusable: when your iPhone goes into rest mode, the app stops playing the book at the end of the audio track. With audiobooks have tracks going 3-5 minutes, I am constantly having to wake up my iPhone, move to the next track and start playing again. On long driving trips, this is exceptionally distracting and furiously frustrating.
I don't know if this defect is fixed in the current Pro version, or if it was an intentional limitation of the Lite version (the documentation makes no mention of it, so I assume it's a bug). Either way, it seems an unfortunate lack of insight, and I am not shelling out the Pro money to update it, unless I know it has been fixed.